love > everything else

the race

“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” ~Hebrews 12:1

Since this weekend, I’ve really been struggling with my emotions. Wrestling with them.

I’ve fallen into the horrible trap of wondering why, why, WHY this is the path that God is taking us down. I’ve been angry, sad and frustrated. I’m even guilty of comparing myself to others. And to what end? I’m not any better for it.

This is a difficult time for both of us, but we still have hope.

My husband is probably the most wonderful man I know. It’s not easy for him to be emotional, but he is really stretching himself emotionally and sitting with me and talking to me (and not telling me how to fix it, which is sort of a guy thing to do). Marriages fail all the time under the weight of infertility. But instead of Frank getting angry with me for being sad, he is learning to be very patient. He encourages me to pray and approach God.

When I think about how difficult this is, it’s hard for me to not remember all of the huge blessings God has given us. We both have jobs, we are both relatively healthy, we have a home that we enjoy, we have family and friends close by – we have SO much.

We have a different race to run than other couples. Harder, easier – it doesn’t matter. It’s our race, specifically designed for us. I can choose to run it with happily, which only makes the race more joyful and worth watching – or I can choose to run it with great sadness, which might be easier in the short term, but is no way to go through life.

So I’m going to make the conscious decision to choose to be happy, to embrace joy and to seek God. And sometimes I might stumble and I might fall, but I will get up and keep going.

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8 thoughts on “the race”

All of this, all of what you’re feeling, is totally normal. I know that doesn’t make it go away or particularly make it better, but I’ve felt like this too, a lot, over the last couple of years.

One thing I read that stuck with me is this – although this feels like the longest, most difficult time of your life at the moment, in reality, the time spent trying to conceive to eventually having a child is actually in terms of the length of both your lives, a very short time indeed. This will one day be over (happily, I’m sure) and you’ll look back on it and remember the trials you went through, and also how well you both coped with it. Because you are coping wonderfully, so much better than me on many occasions, I must say!

I’m glad you’re focusing on the positives, the way you can choose to give into or resist your emotions, and the faith you have in God. Those are all good things, and they don’t change circumstantially. Remember, though, that Jesus wept (over Lazarus). He anguished (in the garden). He got angry (at the Pharisees). He expressed big emotions (when clearing out the temple). They’re overwhelming but not bad. It’s okay to wrestle. It’s okay to wrestle with your emotions, and it’s okay to wrestle with God. The tendency can be to try to default to happiness – or at least “okay-ness” – because embracing the other emotions sometimes feels like a lack of trust. They might be, but sometimes we have to observe and fully experience what we lack in order to fill the void in a Godly way. And sometimes the negative emotions just “are.” Sometimes they just need to be there, and that’s okay, too. I think sometimes they’re there to teach me patience. Try as I might I can’t make them go away. I have to sit with them while I wait for God to clean them out. Anyway, keep focusing on the positive, but if you get the urge to “wallow” for a bit, just know it might not be all bad. Infertility is big and heavy stuff, but I think the biggest struggles also have the potential to produce the biggest harvests of fruit in our lives.

Hey Heidi – You’re absolutely right that sometimes I need to wrestle and sometimes I need to just move on. It’s hard because I worry that if I wrestle/wallow too much, it will become me. But I suppose that’s where the “trust” part of your comment comes into play. Thanks, as always, Heidi!